I now understand why the
AdWords team has chosen to ignore the Google mission statement. They're also ignoring Google's stated philosophy which includes the rejection of pop-up ads. There's a whole page on the Google corporate site devoted to this
no pop-ups philosophy which begins:
Google does not allow pop-up ads of any kind on our site. We find them annoying. So why do they occasionally appear when you search on Google? Here are a few possible explanations:
- You may have encountered a squatter with an address similar to Google's. Occasionally, individuals will register domain names that are one letter off from a well-known URL in hopes of attracting those who make mistakes in their typing.
Now, what I'm about to explain doesn't violate this philosophy, technically speaking, because pop-up ads are being displayed on the Google search network and not on Google's site itself. However, if they "find them annoying" yet allow them on partner sites on their own network, then they are clearly violating the stated philosophy. This example is particularly ironic given Google's choice of the word "squatter" in this context. Google is profiting from sites who engage in this kind of practice through their
AdSense for Domains program. How do I know this? I've seen the
traffic in clients' web server log files.
In the recent
AdWords experiment I conducted, I chose not to
exclude domainsponsor.com like I do now for clients' accounts. I was curious to see if I'd pay for any parked domain traffic and, if so, where that traffic would come from. What I found was that people intending to go to the Iowa GOP site (
iowagop.net or
iowagop.org) were instead typing iowagop.com which is a parked domain powered by searchportal.information.com which is owned by DomainSponsor which is partnered with Google. Now, going back to the above text on Google's corporate site where they talk about "a squatter with an address similar to Google's" - would iowagop.com be considered a "squatter" in this case? I don't know. I don't know what's considered
typosquatting or
cybersquatting versus legitimate domaining.
My point is that if Google is going to use the term "squatter" on their own site, then they shouldn't make money via their domain parking network from sites that could even be construed as squatting. I think this is the reason the AdWords team has
sabotaged the Google corporate mission. They are choosing to
not report to advertisers the actual domains where ads are displayed. They are, therefore, choosing to not "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." They are ignoring
Google's mission. Judge for yourself:
That screenshot is from a searchportal.information.com URL I traced in my firm's web server log files. Trying to figure out where that Google ad click ultimately originated from led me to the "fake" Iowa GOP site:
Notice that Firefox blocked not 1 but 2 pop-ups from this site. That's what I mean by the AdWords team ignoring the
Google no pop-ups corporate philosophy. If pop-ups are prohibited on Google, they should also be prohibited on the Google search network.
Now, what really irks me, though, as a buyer of pure search advertising via AdWords (
content network off) is the fact that Google lumps this traffic in with their search network. This is
distribution fraud, an important distinction from
click fraud, which Google claims to have under control. Notice the "Iowa Straw Poll" link on the iowagop.com parked domain site. I had purchased the exact phrase
[iowa straw poll] via AdWords with ad distribution set only for Google and the search network. IOW, the
content network was off because I wasn't interested in contextual advertising for the experiment. My expectation, then, was to purchase the kind of traffic described on the Google help page answering the "
Where will my ads appear?" question for the search network:
Your ads may appear alongside or above search results, as part of a results page as a user navigates through a site's directory, or on other relevant search pages.
Do they mention navigation through a parked domain? No! Also, I'm not talking about direct navigation from generic keyword domains. That kind of traffic from a parked domain could be considered search advertising. Here's the path for each click my firm paid for that came from this particular searchportal.information.com URL:
- Someone types iowagop.com when intending to visit iowagop.net
- They click on the Iowa Straw Poll link
That is akin to contextual advertising. No one actively typed "iowa straw poll" into a search box. No one typed a generic keyword domain like iowastrawpoll.com directly into the browser bar. Do you see how Google's got this all wrong? Is this search advertising? Not even close. Someone types "iowagop.com" and the advertiser pays for the "iowa straw poll" keyword after someone clicks on a link. Clicking on a link is not conducting a search. Hiding the details by routing all "searches" through a URL like searchportal.information.com that makes the click appear to be a search doesn't hide the fact that this is not, in fact, search advertising. It's fraud. Since Google doesn't recognize this as click fraud, I've adopted the term
distribution fraud. It's arguably a bigger problem than click fraud. Other
AdWords veterans are losing trust in Google due to this issue.
I can see, though, why Google doesn't want to report this kind of information to the advertisers who are paying for this traffic. That violates Google's mission. On top of that, these sites display multiple pop-ups, which is contrary to Google's no pop-ups philosophy. More important than either of those egregious facts, this is simply not search advertising. That's just plain wrong. Is it fraudulent?
Apogee Tags:
domainsponsor,
searchportal,
iowagop,
google mission,
adwords,
adsense for domains,
domain parking,
parked domains,
distribution fraud,
click fraud
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